Across the world, social networks are becoming an increasingly popular communication medium. A large number of users use various social networks such as Facebook™, Linked In™, and Twitter™ to engage in a multitude of social communications on a variety of topics. The various social networking platforms, the social networks that their users create using such social networking platforms, and the various social interactions (including communications) between such social networks is generally referred to as the “social web”. The social web has evolved into a medium, like email, except that it is more public.
Various enterprises promote and sell a wide range of products and/or services. Promotion and sales involve various sales activities, including various interactions between sales/marketing personnel and consumers, who are often social web users. The social web represents important sales/marketing opportunities for vendors. The social web is also important to vendors and other brands from a brand management and reputation management perspective. Social media interactions, including for example communications regarding a brand, can have a viral effect having significant positive or negative consequences. Business and government entities (collectively referred to as “brands” in this disclosure) are interested in taking advantage of these opportunities, and managing associated risk.
However, the social web is characterized by staggering volume of social communications and associated volume of data. Facebook™ and Twitter™ users alone generate more than 3.5 billion posts and comments per day. Add to this volume conversations happening on 300+ million blogs and forums and additional content being contributed via YouTube™, LinkedIn™, Pinterest™ and others. It is estimated that 32% of social media conversations are about companies, products and services, making this a critical channel for businesses, both to understand what is being said about their brands, people and products, and to engage with consumers to grow sales, deliver customer service and retain their consumer base.
For companies wanting to participate in social media, finding the posts that are relevant to their business can prove challenging enough. Traditional social media listening platforms (keyword/Boolean) deliver high volumes of posts that match search criteria, but that can be completely unrelated to a company's brand. For example, a search using the term “Apple” may return posts relating to Apple computers, Apple fruit and more; similarly, a search using the term “TD” may return posts relating to TD Bank, touchdowns, and more. Beyond this, understanding the content of these posts usually requires human beings to read and categorize each one individually—a costly and inefficient process (for example, the term “iPhone” is mentioned 14.5M times/month), which certainly does not permit for a timely response to posts other than those directed to the company's Twitter™ account or Facebook™ page (which addresses only part of the engagement opportunity).
The social web is also characterized by a rapid pace of development. The potential viral effect of social networking can result in a Tweet turning into a full blown public relations disaster for a brand, and there are numerous well documented examples of this phenomenon. Therefore acting on relevant social media objects quickly is essential and challenging.
There is a need for solutions that allow brands (or their service providers) to engage with individual, businesses, or consumers of interest to them from a variety of perspectives. They may be customers, potential customers, customers of a competitor whom they want to target, citizens with whom a brand wants to foster and maintain a positive brand reputation, and so on (may be referred to as a “customer” in this disclosure). There is a further need for solutions that allow brands to communicate with customers in an efficient and effective way, especially given the volume and rapid pace referred to previously.
There is a need therefore for a computer network implemented system, a computer network implemented method, and a computer network architecture that addresses at least some of the challenges referred to above. There is a further need for a computer network implemented system, a computer network implemented method, and a computer network architecture that addresses at least some of the challenges referred to above and that is easy to deploy, and allows the management of marketing communications in an efficient manner.